Turning the Wheels of Change
Dr. Trevor Mundel on how to train a new generation of global health leaders
Dr. Trevor Mundel is one lucky man: He has, “the most satisfying career you can ever imagine in the health care space.” Having transitioned from a successful career in academia and pharmaceutical leadership, his current role as president of the Global Health Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation involves tackling infectious diseases, strengthening health systems and setting priorities in the global health arena. On April 10th, 2015, Mundel shared his thoughts on the key factors shaping the future of global health leadership, in the Voices in Leadership series Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Upon joining the Gates Foundation in 2011 and following a decade of leadership in pharmaceutical corporations such as Novartis and Pfizer, Mundel brought with him a “transferable type of insight” from the business world. He observed that the Foundation lacked a coherent framework for priority setting. Likely in part thanks to his doctoral-level training in mathematics, Mundel found it natural to introduce analytical techniques such as cost-effectiveness and disability-adjusted life years — commonly known as DALYs, to assess which projects would give the greatest return on their investments. Mundel pointed out that such a framework for prioritising was important, given the constrained financial resources that are available for global health work.
Such tools for measuring productivity served to inform not just which ventures would produce the greatest economic returns, “but also the highest human returns.”
While Mundel’s own route to global health leadership involved postgraduate studies in medicine, mathematics, logic and philosophy, at the Leadership Studio Mundel called for “a new pedagogy” in training the next generation of global health leaders. He emphasized the multifunctional nature of the problems that leaders in this field need to be able to tackle, as these range “from genes to the globe.” He furthermore highlighted the need for global health leaders to appreciate the dynamic nature of the political and health systems in which they operate, “as opposed to just book learning of individual components.”
Mundel stressed that one of the priorities of the Foundation is to strengthen health care system infrastructures in low-income countries. Referring to this as “the final frontier,” he emphasized that without the ability to deliver health care, even the most effective therapies placed in poor health systems will fail to have an impact. Mundel noted that another important reason for strengthening infrastructures is to ensure that global health leaders that receive training abroad “will be excited to go back and work in their countries and have the opportunities they would like.” Preventing such brain drain is absolutely critical according to Mundel.
As concluding words of wisdom, Mundel urged the new generation of public health leaders to have a sense of real ambition and “push things beyond maybe even the state of balance.”
He urged students to develop their big ideas as part of this ambition, and assured that following these steps will ensure that global health leaders leave behind them an incredible legacy.
For more from the Voices in Leadership (@VoicesHSPH) series at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (@HarvardHSPH), visitwww.hsph.harvard.edu/voices.
Story edited by Emilia Ling
